Monday, February 29, 2016

Late last year and early this
year rumors surfaced about a game called Sword Art Online: The Beginning, which
would've been a VR MMO title, combining a popular anime about VR MMOs with cutting-edge
technology that would've made the very premise of the film come true. Indeed,
everything considered, the whole idea seemed a little vague and frankly: a bit
too good to be true. Unfortunately, that's exactly what it turned out to be. According
to Ben Lang of Road to VR, the currently budding VR revolution won't be
kick-started by such a massively spectacular undertaking: in fact, Sword Art
Online: The Beginning isn't even a game.According to the above said
rumors, the title - supported by IBM Watson -
was not only already in development, but 208 lucky people would get the
chance to give its alpha version a go in Tokyo this March. Lang dispelled these
rumors too, making it clear that Sword Art Online: The Beginning was nothing
more than a clever promotional ploy on the part of IBM Watson: essentially a
20-minute VR marketing demo, which is still interesting but nowhere near as
impressive as a VR MMO would've been.

Lang's actually talked with
Mogura VR's Shun Kubota regarding the rumored MMO title who confirmed that
Sword Art Online: The Beginning was nothing more than a way to offer a glimpse
into what the future of gaming would look like with IMB Watson's cognitive
computing technology thrown into a distant mix.

If the game had indeed been
conceived and developed, Sword Art Online would've been the perfect universe to
pair it with. In the anime, people in 2022 join a VR game-world called Sword
Art World, to compete. The main point of conflict in the anime seems to be
provided by the skill-gap between those who used the beta version and those
just signing up upon launch.

Philip Thalberg is a hardcore Gosugamer,
supporting the world's top destination for eSports videos since 2004.